Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution

Jamshid Tehrani is an anthropologist specialising in the transmission and transformation of culture across generations. He trained in social anthropology at the London School of Economics and subsequently earned a Master's degree in Human Evolution and Behaviour from University College London. He completed his Ph.D. in Anthropology in 2005 at UCL, focusing on the transmission of craft traditions among Iranian tribal groups. Tehrani joined Durham University in 2007, becoming a Chair in Anthropology in 2020 and serving as Head of Department from 2022 - 2025. His current research primarily investigates the dissemination of popular narratives, including folktales, urban legends, and conspiracy theories.Rachel Kendal is an evolutionary anthropologist specialising in cultural evolution. She trained in Zoology and Psychology at Nottingham University and completed a PhD in Zoology (2003) at Cambridge University, focusing on innovation and social learning in monkeys and fish. She joined Durham University in 2007, becoming Chair in 2020. Recently, she served as President of the Cultural Evolution Society and led the CES Transformation Fund grant scheme. Her current research concerns learning strategies across species, their potential contribution to the evolution of human, and non-human culture and their potential application to societal issues such as conservation and public health.Jeremy Kendal is an anthropologist specialising in cultural evolution. He trained in biology at the Nottingham University and subsequently earned a Master's degree in Biological Computation from the University of York. He completed his Ph.D. in Zoology in 2003 at Cambridge University, focusing on the adaptive value of social learning, combining mathematical modelling with experiments using guppy fish. Kendal joined Durham University in 2007. His current research concerns epistemology, memory, cultural transmission and disease emergence

• Introduction 1: Joshua Conrad Jackson & Juliet Dunstone: The history of cultural evolution: reflections from leading figures in the field Approaches to Cultural Evolution 2: Laurel Fogarty & Anne Kandler: Modelling cultural transmission 3: Alex Bentley, Simon Carrington, & Damian Ruck: Modelling drift and selection in cultural evolution 4: Fredrik Jansson, Andrew Buskell, & Magnus Enquist: Cultural systems 5: Alex Mesoudi: Experimental investigation of cultural evolution 6: Dietrich Stout & Erin Hecht: Evolutionary neuroscience of cultural evolution 7: Mike O'Brien: Evolutionary archaeology 8: Ruth Mace & Hanzhi May Zhang: Cross-Cultural Comparative Methods for Testing Evolutionary Hypotheses 9: Helena Miton: Cultural attraction 10: Tim Lewens: Philosophy of cultural evolution Innovation & social Learning: the foundations of cultural evolution 11: Bruce Rawlings & Simon Reader: What is innovation? 12: Will Hoppitt & Sonja Wild: What is social learning? 13: Michelle Kline: Teaching 14: Christine Caldwell: What is cumulative cultural evolution? 15: Rachel Kendal & Robin Watson: When is social learning adaptive? 16: Edwin van Leeuwen & Tom Morgan: Conformist social learning 17: Matt Offord, Charlotte Brand, & Jeremy Kendal: Prestige biased social learning 18: Cecilia Heyes & Richard Moore: The cognitive foundations of culture 19: Daphna Buschbaum & Rebekah Gelpi: Life history of social learning tendencies in humans 20: Dan Haun, Kari Neldner, & Roman Stengelin: Cultural variation in childhood social learning 21: Kim Sterelny: Cultural Intelligence Animal Cultures 22: Caroline Schuppli & Emma Lokuciejewski: What constitutes nonhuman culture and how is it studied? 23: Andy Whiten: Culture in the great apes 24: Erica van de Waal & Charlotte Canteloup: Culture in monkeys 25: Ellen Garland & Luke Rendell: Culture in cetaceans 26: Alex Thornton & Josh Arbon: Culture in mammals 27: Lucy Aplin: Culture in birds 28: Culum Brown: Culture in fish 29: Etienne Danchin, Guillaume Isabel, & Sabine Nöbel: Culture in insects 30: Lara Wood, Gill Vale, Emma Flynn, & Bruce Rawlings: Cross species comparisons of human and nonhuman culture Approaches, discoveries, limitations, and future directions 31: Thibaud Gruber: Anthropogenic effects on animal cultures Technology 32: Maxime Derex & Tom Morgan: Cultural transmission of technological skills 33: Claudio Tennie: Tools and culture among early hominins 34: Anna Prentiss: Lithic technological evolution 35: Salva Duran-Nebreda & Sergi Valverde: The Natural Evolution of Computing 36: Alberto Acerbi: Digital Culture Arts and Literature 37: Jamie Tehrani: The Cultural Transmission and Evolution of Folk Narratives 38: Chris Buckley: Craft Traditions 39: Mason Youngblood, Yuto Ozaki & Pat Savage: Cultural Evolution and Music 40: Jan Verpooten: Signalling and the Cultural Evolution of Art 41: Christopher Howe & Heather Windram: Manuscript Traditions 42: Oleg Sobchuk: Modern literature and film Religion 43: Aiyana Willard, Hugh Turpin & Adam Baimel: Universal Cognitive Biases as the Basis for Supernatural Beliefs: Evidence and Critiques 44: Theiss Bendixen, Aaron Lightner & Ben Purzycki: The Cultural Evolution of Religion and Cooperation 45: Joseph Watts: The Cultural Macroevolution of Religion 46: Harvey Whitehouse: The Role of Ritual in the Evolution of Social Complexity 47: Kirsten A. Lesage, Maliki E. Ghossainy, Rebekah A. Richert , & Kathleen Corriveau: Social learning and religion Sociality 48: Tom Currie & Cedric Perret: The Cultural Evolution of Sociopolitical Organization: Examining how evolutionary processes acting at different scales have shaped history> 's broadest patterns 49: Quentin Atkinson & Luke Matthews: Cultural evolution and the economic wealth of nations 50: Adrian Bell: The influence of migration on cultural evolution 51: Heidi Colleran & Yi-Ta Lu: Fertility transition 52: John Bunce & Richard McElreath: Ethnicity Language and Communication 53: Rachael Bailes & Christine Cuskley: The cultural evolution of language 54: Limor Raviv & Simon Kirby: Self-domestication and the evolution of language  55: Simon Greenhill: Language phylogenies 56: Yoolim Kim & Olivier Morin: Evolution of writing scripts Gene culture coevolution 57: Kevin Lala, Marc Feldman, & John Odling Smee: Dialectics that sweep away <'COWDUNG> ': The Construction of Evolutionary, Cultural and Scientific Niches  58: Rob Boyd: The cultural niche 59: Arnon Lotem, Oren Kolodny, & Michal Arbilly: Gene-culture coevolution in the cognitive domain  60: Mark Thomas & Catherine Walker: Cultural evolution and diet 61: Stephen Shennan: Ancient DNA and cultural evolution Applications 62: Charles Efferson, Sonja Vogt & Lukas von Flüe: Applied diffusion of innovations and interventions 63: Alexandra Alvergne: Cultural Evolution and Population Health Interventions 64: Micheal de Barra: Cultural evolution of ineffective medicine 65: Joe Stubbersfield: Conspiracy theories 66: Tim Waring, Monique Borgerhoff-Mulder & Roope Kaaronen: Environmental sustainability and climate change 67: Alison Greggor: Animal Conservation 68: Cristine Legare, Frankie Fong & Alejandro Erut: Education 69: Michael Muthukrishna & Robin Schimmelpfennig: Public policy 70: Michele Gelfand, Xinyue Pan & Alex Landry: Integroup relations 71: Paul Smaldino, Cailin O'Connor & Jingyi Wu: Cultural evolution of science